In the world of digital marketing, there are a number of ways to make your business stand out. One method that many businesses like to use is pay-per-click ads, otherwise known as PPC advertising. But what is PPC advertising exactly? Let’s dive into the basics of paid search marketing with the following overview.
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Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online advertising strategy where advertisers pay for their ads to appear when particular keywords are searched. For many new businesses, PPC advertising is a solid way for attaining customers and promoting products that aren’t as widely known. Other goals may include increasing sales, generating new leads, or even boosting brand awareness.
Understanding PPC, or Pay-Per-Click
Having PPC ads that are relevant to your users is crucial for having a strategy that brings real results. PPC stands for pay-per-click, which simply means, advertisers have to pay a search engine a small fee every time a user clicks on the ad. Because there is a cost associated with each click for an ad, the goal is to attain customers that will follow through with the buying process. In other words, if your display ads and landing pages are relevant to what the user is looking for, you’ll receive a greater return on your investment.
Search engines are the most popular online platform for showing ads for PPC. Advertising systems like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads help advertisers create ads that will appear on certain websites such as Google’s search engine or Microsoft’s Bing.
How PPC Campaigns Work
When you search for a particular keyword, there are a couple of different spots for ads to appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). For advertisers, the goal is to create a campaign that targets those keywords so that their ads obtain those top spots. In order to keep results up-to-date, keywords are placed on an auction where advertisers can place a bid. If your ad is relevant to the keyword, outbids other competitors, and has a high-quality score, you’ll ultimately win one of those top spots.
Best Searched Terms
Having a good keyword strategy lies at the heart of any successful ad campaign. One way is to look at the search queries your target user is typing. By knowing what people are searching for, you can formulate a list of keywords that are relevant to your product or service. Another way is to find negative keywords to ensure your ads are receiving the right traffic. For example, if you’re selling a sofa, the keyword “free sofa” would be negative since the user is most likely not looking to buy a sofa. Once you have a list of keywords, you can further optimize your keyword list by adding different variations and long-tail keywords.
Driving Traffic to Your Products
Finding the right keywords for any PPC campaign takes time and research to determine what will help you receive the best ad placement and click-through rate. For many businesses, optimizing a bid strategy can take up to three months in order to gather data and formulate a plan that will help your ads rank higher on the search results.
Not sure where to start? Get in touch with our marketing team to learn how PPC advertising could benefit your business.
